Mother Nagisa
by Pokepika's Haunt
Summary: Nagisa Uzumaki is in for quite a shock when after a week long mission, it is discovered her childhood friend has murdered his clan. Can she find out the true reason of why when she is given the mission to raise and protect his younger brother Sasuke?
1. I Have to do WHAT Now!

A/N. This is another fem!Naru fanfic, and me messing around with timeline relevance and age a lot really. I'm not sure when exactly the idea struck me or if there are others like this, but if not than I guess I'll be the first. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the story and thanks for reading!

P.s. I kind of trapped myself in a corner with that female name that begins with Naru thing, so I decided to jump out of it a bit. And I refuse to use Naruko because it's used so much.

**WARNING! Older Fem!Naru!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing! Everything Naruto belongs to Kishimoto!**

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**1: I Have to do WHAT Now?!**

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There was a tension in the air of the village, hanging low and heavy over the heads of both civilians and shinobi alike. It was almost suffocating and she had to wonder what had changed in the week she had been absent from her home. And for that matter where was Itachi? That man had promised to meet up with her when she got back and take her to Ichiraku's for ramen, and he knew she didn't like it when he broke his promises. She couldn't be faulted if something unfortunate happened to his precious room, or if his precious little brother suddenly started calling him a pervert for seemingly unknown reasons. Karma didn't like people who broke their promises to others after all. She was so caught up in her scheming that she almost missed the whispering group of housewives, all too caught up in themselves to note that someone might be listening in to them.

"_I can't believe it!"_

"_Me either!"_

"_That Itachi Uchiha would…" _At her childhood friend's name, she immediately turned around, about to approach the group to ask them what their conversation was about, when she sensed a disturbance in the air itself.

"Fox-sama," She turned, anbu mask still firmly in place as her eyes landed on the all too familiar form of another anbu member, one of her own if she remembered the mask correctly. "You've been summoned. Hokage-sama wishes to speak with you." She nodded her head in confirmation, eyes narrowing in suspicion as she paused to wave her hand in dismissal before following him to the tower.

"Hokage-sama…" She greeted as she entered the rather stuffy room. She had no idea how the old man hadn't killed over yet from heatstroke, the ventilation in the Hokage Tower as a whole was poor at best and abysmal at worse, and even if the room was spacious as could be, the place was usually a dust covered mess and kept about as well as an abandoned building that had been falling apart for at least a decade now and otherwise forgotten. It didn't help at all that the man, getting on in his years as he was, was constantly being drowned in mountains after mountain of paperwork. Most of it just complicated gibberish concerning the laws that and powers that the council wished to obtain in order to further usurp the seat of the village leader and make the role all but useless.

* * *

"Ah, Fox-san, it's good to see you. How was the mission?" the man asked, a gentle smile on his face and an almost childish twinkle in his eyes. He'd been a sight for sore eyes if she was willing to admit how homesick she had become during her time away, but she was an anbu now, not a genin fresh out of the academy and bumbling around like a headless chicken along with her teammates, and she couldn't afford to get too sentimental during her missions.

"Good, I'll have the report on your desk by tomorrow afternoon."

"Good, good. Ah, Dog-san, Cat-san, could you please excuse us for a few minutes. Just a few, I'd like to speak with Fox-san alone."

"Hai, Hokage-sama." The two older anbu nodded their heads, appearing in a flicker of the air before walking past her and leaving the room, Dog having paused for a split second to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder before he left.

She waited a split second, watching the door close behind the two, before turning around fast enough to give herself whiplash for a week, a hand reaching up to pull the familiar mask from her face as clear blue eyes glared at him. Blonde hair whipping around just as quickly.

"Ok Old Man, what in Kami-sama's name is going on here?" She demanded, hands slamming down on the man's desk and almost sending a whole stack of completed paperwork flying through the winds.

"Nagi-chan…"

"Don't Nagi-chan me, Jiji! Where the hell is Itachi, and why the hell does the village feel like if I so much as make a peep I'm liable to lose my head?!"

"Nagisa." The man's tone was warning her to watch her tongue. But she knew he couldn't blame her, not really.

Itachi had been her childhood friend, the only one to so much as talk to her when everyone else had avoided her like the plague back when she had first started attending the academy. They had been through a lot together, both in and out of school, and while he had been the only one she could rely on when everyone else seemed to hate her guts, she had been his only confidant. One of the only three people he had befriended that hadn't expected anything out of him beyond friendship or a familial bond. The others being Itachi's cousin, Shisui, a man who might as well have been his brother, and Sasuke, Itachi's baby brother. He'd almost been like a brother to her as well, and had nearly risked life and limb to rescue her when she had been captured by an unknown assailant hell-bent on using the Kyuubi to all but raze Konohagakure to the ground, despite his own father's, and several other's objections. She had every right to be angry and lash out when her dear friend clearly wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"Look I'm sorry, alright Jiji. But you have to tell me. Where. Is. Itachi?" The man sighed, looking far older than he ever had before in her eyes, every bit of stress and every single wrinkle made more pronounced as he settled into his chair. He looked like he had wanted to die, swamped behind a practical wall of paperwork and beseeched by the council that had gotten a taste of power and only screamed for more instead of wisely settling with the roles they had.

"I'm sorry Nagi-chan." He apologized, and she almost thought the worst had happened and Itachi had somehow managed to get himself killed on a mission while she was gone.

"Oh Kami-sama." She gasped, pain seizing her heart as she could only imagine the condition in which the Uchiha might've been found in, if any at all. Certainly not alive if the old man was apologizing to her instead of telling her where her friend had gone. She almost killed over, just barely managing to keep herself standing as grief hit hard and fast, knocking the air out of her lungs and leaving her eyes blurry. It was a rare show of emotion if any, but it was one that was soon to be replaced by the next words that left the elder's mouth.

"Nagi-chan, please, don't get ahead of me. Itachi Uchiha is not dead."

"What? Then why in the damn world are you fucking apologizing?! You had me thinking he'd been murdered by enemy shinobi!" She almost threw something at the man. How dare he get her so worked up like that! The hokage sighed, actually flinching slightly at the visible anger pouring off of the teenager before him and he couldn't but laugh slightly to himself. She was seventeen now, seventeen. And while she was nowhere near his age yet, at any stretch of the word, she was still a frightening being to behold when angered, almost as frightening as his own, wayward student, Tsunade. "Why I oughtta-"

"Nagisa." He said again, knowing she was fairly close to knocking him out of his seat. The man also knew she'd get away with it, not because of any important status, but because he thought of her as his own granddaughter, regardless of the lack of blood relations shared. She could murder someone with her own two hands and plead guilty to the action; he'd still forgive her and let her go. "The reason I'm apologizing isn't because Itachi is dead. I'm apologizing because he's betrayed us."

"What?" She stopped, looking at him as if he'd just grown a second head, five eyes, and four more arms and legs.

"Itachi has gone nuke-nin." He began explaining, reciting everything the report that he himself couldn't have believed if he'd tried. "At nine o' clock in the afternoon, shortly after the academy had released its students, Itachi murdered his entire clan. Killing everyone, including his own parents." He pulled the report out, placing it at the center of the desk in case Nagisa wanted to read what might as well have been blasphemy in her mind.

"That's not possible…" She said, eying the report as her expression grew to near murderous proportions. "Itachi wouldn't kill his clan… Not without a damn good reason."

"Nagisa…"

"Don't 'Nagisa' me! I know Itachi, better than anyone in this damn village aside from Shisui! He wouldn't kill his entire clan without a reason!" She yelled at him, throwing the traitorous sheets of paper onto the floor and all but crushing them under foot. Lies, that's what they were to her, and it was obvious by the disgusted expression she wore on her face. "If he really did kill his entire clan, he was either ordered to do so, by someone of higher standing, and it was probably because the clan itself was a danger of some sort to the village."

"Nagisa."

"Where's Sasuke?"

"What?"

"Where. Is. Sasuke Uchiha. Itachi's younger brother? The little boy who all but worships the ground that man walks on? Where is he?!" She questioned, looking near mutinous as she started pacing the perimeter of the room. "Regardless of what any councilmen want him to do, he wouldn't kill his younger brother, and I know for a fact he'd never raise a hand again Shisui. For that matter where is Shisui? Where are they Jiji?" The hokage sighed once again, realizing that for better or worse, Nagisa was an anbu commander, easily able to piece together facts and information that others would've completely overlooked or just outright ignored. If a friend or subordinate of hers did something that normally would've gotten them branded as a traitor, she wouldn't believe what another said without getting the facts for herself first.

"Shisui is missing as well, we have no idea as to his whereabouts. We know he is alive though. That is it. Sasuke however, is currently in the hospital being treated for minor injuring sustained during the incident."

"Kami-sama this is so fucked up!" She swore again, finally coming to a stop in the middle of the room. Suddenly she turned for the door, pulling the mask back over her face and all but manhandling a kunai into her hands.

"Nagisa! Where in the world are you going?!"

"To find Itachi and Shisui! And drag their sorry asses back to the village! Where else would I go?!"

"You can't!" He tried to tell her, and he found himself once again face to face with an angry seventeen year old woman known to leave the majority of her peers terrorized for weeks on end.

"And why not?"

"Because I need you for something else."

"And what in the world would that be?"

"Sasuke."

"What?"

"Sasuke is still a child, only a year into the academy, he's not old enough to live on his own just yet. You were Itachi's best friend, he thought of you like a sister. Kami knows he probably convinced himself of that as you were growing up. The only person her ever risked his life for aside from his brother and cousin was you." The man said, waving a hand as if the man they were talking about was right in the room with them. "Shisui is missing, Itachi has fled the village. Sasuke is the only one left of the Uchiha clan." Suddenly Nagisa began to shake her head, practically laughing as she caught on to what the man was getting at.

"Oh no… No, no, no, no, NO! Jiji, you can't really think that I… Hokage-sama, I am sorry, but I am not the mothering material! You know that!"

"Nagisa, I know the exact opposite. You get along well with children, more so than you think."

"What about the council! You know they won't allow this!" She couldn't believe she was actually using the village elders as an escape, but it was true. "The last thing they want is the 'Demon Brat' raising the all-important Last Uchiha! They'll throw a riot!"

"Which is why they don't have a choice in the matter. Nagisa please, you are the only one left that Sasuke can trust, the only one I can trust with this. The only one either Itachi or Shisui can trust. If I leave him on his own or with anyone else they'll pollute the boy's mind. I need someone I know will take good care of him, and who better than the girl that might as well have been a sister to his older brother. Please, if not for me, than for Itachi."

"Kami-sama, you know I hate it when you pull that card!" She couldn't help but whine. He knew she couldn't say no when he did that, she never could. She huffed, a harsh bout of air through her nose as she crossed her arms all but pouted like she was seven again. "Fine! I'll watch Itachi's little brat of a brother."

"Thank you. Now I'm considering this a double S-rank mission. Long-term. You'll get a pay for it of course, and you'll be moved from your one person apartment into a home more befitting someone raising a child."

"Hai Hokage-sama. Anything else?"

"I'm also removing you from the Anbu, at least until Sasuke is old enough to live on his own. You will be given a monthly allowance straight out of the money reserves to aid in your raising."

"Fine." She would've objected, honestly she would've, but with her suddenly having to take on the role of mother to a suddenly orphaned Uchiha, she wouldn't have had the time, and she had feeling that there was more behind removing her from the anbu than just convenience. Sasuke knew her, yes, but he only knew her as the kind and gentle girl that would occasionally swing by to torment his brother in various ways and would often give him treats behind their mother's back. He didn't know that she was anbu, like his brother, or that she was even a shinobi. Itachi had made her promise to not give away the fact that she was a shinobi and that meant that the use of any jutsu or skills that came with such an occupation were a no-go. A mission this might've been, but she could already tell. This wasn't a shinobi mission, this was a civilian mission, one where she would have to shelve the majority of her hard earned skills in favor of taking on the role of a housewife. The old man even confirmed her own conclusions.

"You are to keep the fact that you are an anbu secret from him." It was easy enough, after all. But she could already see what little crack in that little rule.

"And what if Sasuke needs help in the academy, help becoming the shinobi that he'll probably still want to become regardless of what has happened?"

"Then teach him. What he is willing to learn and maybe even things he might not be at first. But you must remember to never tell him you were anbu." He explained, his expression serious as he reminded her of the one rule she'd probably wind up breaking at some point anyways. "Now turn in your mask, you are no longer Fox, Anbu Commander of Squad Alpha. You are now Nagisa Uzumaki, caretaker and legal guardian of the last Uchiha, Sasuke."

"Okay Jiji." She said, removing the mask and placing it on the desk. "This ought to be one hell of a change."

* * *

"Are you sure that was such a good idea?" The Hokage sighed, placing the brush down as he looked Dog in the eye. The man simply met his gaze, dark gray eyes concerned as he waited patiently for a response. Somewhere off to the side, they could both still sense Cat, who had remained hidden in the shadows for her own reasons. "She was right you know. The Council, especially the elders, won't like that you put Nagisa in charge of the last Uchiha. They'll object, and might even go behind your back in order to prove that she's not a suitable caretaker."

"Some of them might, yes. But I can't have Nagisa running across Hi no Kuni trying to find those two. She'll only get herself kidnapped again, just like when she was fourteen!"

"Excuse me Hokage-sama, but I must disagree." Cat suddenly entered into the conversation, her presence suddenly more pronounced than it had been the few seconds prior. "Nagisa-san, is no longer fourteen. She's not a genin anymore, and while Itachi and Shisui might not be around any longer to help keep her safe, she's still a lot stronger than what she used to be."

"Even so Cat-san, I need someone I can trust to take care of Sasuke near him. And who better to understand what loneliness feels like other than Nagisa?"

"You're right I guess. I just hope you haven't put her into a position she can't handle." The old man chuckled good naturedly at that. He couldn't fault the man for his own worry after all. It wasn't like he himself didn't have the same concerns, and besides, Nagisa was the daughter of the man's late teacher, he had every right to prioritize her own well-being over anything else.

"It's Nagisa though, if anyone can pull through. It's her."

"You're right."

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A/N. Well, that's that. So what do you think? I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, and again, thanks for reading! And if you want to see what this fem!Naru looks like go swing by my deviantArt account! Please leave a review and see ya!


	2. In This Together

A/N. And here's the second chapter! Hope you guys enjoy this one as well!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

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**2: In This Together**

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She might not ever be the first to admit it, but Nagisa was as much a skeptic as she was a believer. And as contradictory and paradoxical as that sounded, it was in fact the truth. There were as many things she did believe in, as there were things she didn't. She didn't believe in karma, though some might beg to differ. And reincarnation was about as overrated as overrated could be in her book. But she believed in ghosts with as much sureness as she believed the Kyuubi to be the biggest conniving jerk she'd ever had the displeasure of meeting, what with the blasted fuzz ball laughing at her every time she had to go to him so the both of them wouldn't wind up buried six feet under. But if there was one thing that she could never be shaken in, aside from her belief in never giving up, it was Murphy's Law.

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

If you are in a battle with enemy shinobi, and it is only you and two other teammates against roughly a dozen or so more of them, if not a hundred depending on how badly Lady Luck wants to screw your life over. Chances are high that by the end said battle, both of your teammates have been more or less knocked senseless, you are probably the only one still conscious, and you yourself are probably a millisecond away from killing over due to extreme blood loss.

In retrospect, considering that she believed so heavily in said law of cause and effect, she shouldn't have been as shocked as she was when she had found out that her childhood friend, Itachi Uchiha, man who would murder a thousand just to make three measly people happy, had been accused of murdering his whole entire clan. Leaving only his precious baby brother as the lone survivor of one of the greatest tragedies to ever hit Konoha, and their friend and his cousin, Shisui, missing. But still, she was. This was Itachi they were talking about, a boy who at the age of eleven, not even a year after getting out of the academy, risked his life to try and get her back after some foreign ninja had tried to turn her into a tool to be used against her own village. The boy who had grown to love the village enough to give a limb or two for. Itachi had done more for Konohagakure than even a few of the councilmen had done in their whole lives, and yet, here and now, the villagers loitered about calling him traitor when just the day before they had been showering him with praise.

If she wasn't as loyal to the village as she was, she very well might've gone traitor herself, drawing a kunai and embedding it into the skull of the closest villager before possibly setting the place ablaze and walking away with what some might consider Armageddon at her back and a maniacal laughter on her lips. She really would've turned into what the villagers had feared for so long now. As things stood currently though, she didn't have the time nor patience to be going nuke-nin without so much as a warning beforehand, and in the first place she had a mission. Assigned to her by the man she thought of like a grandfather and which kept a personal stake in her heart.

Itachi had left his little brother alive.

Only the gods knew how the six year old boy was handling such traumatizing events. But she'd be damned, three times over, if she let him handle it all on his own. Itachi had gone running off without an explanation, possibly taking Shisui with him, and had left two of his siblings behind. Even if one of them was only that in everything but blood, he was in for it when she finally managed to get her hands around that stringy little neck of his. Right after beating the living crap out of him and dragging him back to the village, just so she could make him beg for forgiveness over his own stupidity. He'd owe her more than just a couple of bowls of ramen from Ichiraku by the time she was down. She'd make him go bankrupt in vengeance. Or maybe just paint his room an ungodly shade of kill-me-please pink again. That had gotten a hilarious reaction the last three times she'd done it as payback.

"A-Ano…"

"What?!" She barked at the voice, wincing at her own sharpness as she watched some poor girl flinch away from her at the probably downright livid expression on her face. "Kami-sama, I'm sorry. It's just…"

"Having a rough day?"

"You have no idea." Nagisa smiled, her lips tight and pressed together as she ran a hand through long locks of golden blonde hair. When was the last time she had cut it anyways? Wouldn't matter at this point, soon she'd be playing civilian guardian instead of anbu commander and how long her hair got wouldn't be much of a problem any longer. She wasn't at risk of getting into a hair pulling tussle with some ninny of a kunoichi who didn't know the difference between the sharp end of a kunai and the handle.

"Kami-sama, you must be exhausted if you don't recognize me." The girl said, reaching up a hand to push stray locks of dirt brown hair the color of nutrient rich soil out of her face. Pale blue eyes glittering mischievously the whole entire time.

"Hmm?" It took her a few seconds of outright blank staring before her frazzled brain finally caught up to the conversation, and for that matter, who she was conversating with. "Oh my… Rika!" She all but cheered, practically throwing her arms around the sorely-missed girl, one of the few that after overcoming her own fear of socializing with anyone not ten years younger than her finally managed to talk and befriend her. She couldn't count the number of times the aspiring medic-nin had saved her butt after getting in over her head with enemy shinobi. She was sure that if the girl hadn't been around when she had been on several occasions, she'd be dead and buried instead of standing in front of her chatting right now. It was only after that thought that she realized that at some point during her mini rant inside her head, she'd managed to walk herself straight into Konohagakure's hospital without realizing it.

"Finally you recognize me! Where have you been?"

"Kami-sama, I just got back from a mission in Wave. Do you know how many times I feel into water? I've never been so drenched in all my life!" She complained, finally feeling the pent up stress leave, her body relaxing after what had felt like the longest, most arduous day she'd ever had in her life thus far. She guessed it was to be expected though, talking to Rika was like getting a breath of fresh air after spending three years in a stuffy room filled stagnant air. In other words, the most refreshing thing in the world. It was no wonder she was the nurse usually placed in change of the children that wound up in Konoha's hospital. Unlike most other women and men that worked in the place, she knew how to smile and laugh, how to be their friend and keep them feeling safe and entertained. The others only knew how to attach a limb that had been blown off by someone carelessly stepping on a bomb tag in the midst of battle, how to piece together those that had been torn apart by war and when to put them out of their misery when it was obvious that the damage was just too much. They only knew how to fix a shinobi, and that they needed no comfort because for them, their very lives were constantly at risk due to the occupation they had chosen. They knew how to patch up an injury yes, but they had become so desensitized to bloodshed and death, that they didn't know how to make anyone feel comfortable in the antiseptic environment that was the brain-numbingly white walls of a hospital.

"And of course you would be the shinobi that falls into a river some thousand times, and yet still manages to leave the large majority of the men she's placed in charge of quivering in their boots if they so much as snicker at you."

"Damn right I am. And proud of it too."

"You're starting to sound like Tsume-sama." Rika laughed, bringing up a hand to cover her lips as the two began to walk through the lobby. "So what brings you here of all places? Don't tell me you managed to actually get yourself injured again!"

"I can proudly say that nope! I actually managed to come back from a mission completely unscathed." She grinned mischievously, actually looking proud herself for the fact, though she guessed she could be. The times she came back without so much as a paper cut on her pinky were rare, few and far between. But it was to be expected with the job she had taken. She could've been a store keeper, a civilian occupation that required less handling of deadly sharp objects and slips of paper that could result in the loss of a limb or two if handled incorrectly. But she had chosen to be a shinobi, and life-at-risk almost all the time aside, she was happy. Though at this point in time, her life could've been going a lot better.

"Well that's a first. So what are you here for?" At the thought, Nagisa's expressions changed. Taking a turn for the extremely serious as she adopted her "Anbu-Leader" face, as Shisui had once jokingly called it while poking her in the cheek trying to get her to stop glaring death at the leader of the Uchiha clan, and getting knocked senseless not even five seconds later. She couldn't remember a time Itachi had laughed so hard.

"I'm here to pick up the Uchiha brat."

"You mean Sasuke Uchiha? But wh- Oh, so Hokage-sama chose you to watch over him." Rika's expression turned solemn, and Nagisa had to fight her emotions down as she saw the telltale sign of tears threatening to spill from what were normally such happy eyes. "Kami-sama, how? I mean… I can't believe Itachi-kun actually did something like that…" The slightly older girl laughed, a broken harsh sound that made her ears hurt despite how quiet it was, and made Nagisa's heart feel like a nail had been driven through it. She faintly remembered that Rika had been one of a few girls that had had a crush on the older Uchiha. And not the superficial kind dependent on a manufactured image of the real thing either.

She'd wanted to genuinely get to know Itachi, and to at least be a little close to him. She'd been too shy to ever confess her feelings to the at the time boy, but Nagisa had guessed by the way that the other had looked at the girl sometimes when they talked, that he knew of her feelings. True, they had never been returned. She had had no delusions of ever playing match-maker for the two, as love-struck as the at-the-time shy girl could get, Itachi was not the type to fond over girls at that age. He'd had other things in mind. More important than finding a nice girl that could possibly become his wife somewhere in the far off future. Or at least it was seen that way in his book. Now Itachi had supposedly gone traitor on all of them and abandoning the village for some unknown reason. And while she might not have believed for a split second that he had done it for any reason that wasn't something selfless, she still felt the raw burn of hatred and anger building up for his actions, settling heavy in her stomach and making her almost violently ill.

"Just… Can you take me to his room?"

"Huh?" The girl questioned, tears streaming down her face and making the relatively young girl look a lot older and worn down than she had when they had more or less run into each other. "Oh!" She grasped in sudden realization, arm coming up to wipe the tears from her face and eyes before rapidly nodding her head in confirmation. "Of course, right this way. If you don't mind signing in…"

"Right!"

* * *

"Now, I'll warn you right now. He's been kind of… Ah, what's the word? Moody? Since he woke up. The doctors think he might be in shock from the… you know." Nagisa nodded, watching as Rika nervously fidgeted in front of the doorway, eying the last Uchiha like he was going to suddenly jump out of the hospital bed and attack. She didn't see what there was to be afraid of though. The six year old looked small, and even though she wasn't looking him straight in the face, she could still clearly see the vulnerability that was so blatantly obvious in his eyes; a broken little boy, lost and alone with his whole entire family dead and his brother, a supposed traitor. Only the gods above knew how many lies had probably been shoved into that little tale, and just how many of them had come straight from the supposed culprit himself.

Itachi had always been bad at telling the truth, to anyone really. If they were close to him and they didn't know what was really going on, than whether he be damned or not. Chances were that you wouldn't find out the truth till he was dead, and knowing him as well as she did. Nagisa guessed that he'd take the secret to the grave with him if he could. The best of secrets were often kept well enough, only when the people who knew them were all long gone. After all, a dead man told no tales, their lips forever stilled by the grip of the shinigami.

That wasn't her main problem at the moment though.

"Kami, I don't even know how I'm going to handle this. I've never had to deal with kids before! Jiji should've gotten someone else to do this." She complained, running a hand through her hair again as she paced the few feet in front of the door. The boy hadn't noticed either of them yet, and if she was lucky she might be able to speed on back to the hokage to tell him she couldn't do it without him noticed.

"Oh come on, Nagi. You and I both know you're worrying for nothing. You won't know until you try! Who knows, you might even be a natural!"

"But Rika! You don't get it! That boy has lost his entire family! His brother's off running in the winds, I'm not even sure what I'm gonna do if I ever see Itachi again!"

"And I almost feel bad for him. Every time you say that, the second you see the person you wind up socking them in the face so hard they wind up seeing stars for weeks."

"Shut up, he needs the stars knocked out of him." She barked, the tease in her voice matching the one that could be heard in Rika's before she got serious once again. "Damn, it's not like I can understand him…"

"What do you mean?"

"Rika, I'm not like you and the others! I've never had parents before. I've never had a family!" She bit out, struggling to keep her voice low enough that Sasuke wouldn't hear her yelling at the other girl. "I was an orphan the day I was born! Sasuke had a family! He's had a mom and a dad, he had a whole off shoot of family members I don't even know what to call them! And supposedly, he walked right into his older brother, the man he all but worshipped, killing both his mother and father!"

"Nagisa…"

"I don't know what it feels like to lose a family! Up until I met Itachi, I didn't even know what it was like to be loved to any degree. In case you and the Hokage forgot, I was hated, despised in fact. Half the village wanted me dead and the other half refused to acknowledge the fact that I existed! At least the village will accept him, I had to work my ass off to get even a few people to recognize that maybe I wasn't the monster everyone else made me out to be."

"And yet here you are. Fighting and proving to those that still won't accept you that you are not the big bad boogeyman they fear so much." Rika said, her expression suddenly very gentle as she reached up, a hand coming up to raise her chin so the other would look at her. "Nagi-chan, you have more in common with Sasuke than you think. Yes, you are older than him, by more or less eleven years in fact. But you are also all that is left of the big brother that he knew. You are his proof that maybe not everything Itachi-kun did was a lie. You both are alone now. And while you might now understand what it is like to lose your whole entire family in one night, you know what it is like to not have one at all."

"So?"

"That's more than I can say for the rest of this village. If anyone in the village can understand what that type of loneliness feels like. It's you. So…" The older girl paused, turning Nagisa around and moving her so that she stood directly in front of the door way. "Get in there! He's your responsibility now, orders of the Hokage himself!"

"Gah!" Nagisa cried, all but stumbling as the other pushed her into the room without any warning. She flinched as the door slammed shut behind her, an obvious message that Rika would insure that she had all the privacy she needed to for as long as it was necessary. She was a split second from swearing out the girl regardless, but was stopped by probably the most saddest voice she'd ever heard.

"Nagisa-nee-chan?" She flinched again, turning around slowly to look the six year old boy she'd suddenly been left alone with in the eye. And the sight almost broke her heart. Here was the boy that used to cling to Itachi whenever the chance arose, now looking at her like the world had suddenly come to an end, and he had no idea why.

"Oh… Uh, hey…" She sighed, allowing the hand she'd been using to wave nervously at him to drop back to her side before walking over and taking up a spot at the foot of the bed. "How you holding up, Kiddo?"

"…Why?" She couldn't stop herself from sighing again, watching as the boy broke down right in front of her very eyes. And she couldn't help but think of the mess Itachi had left her to clean up. He'd broken his brother to pieces, was it now her job to put him back together? "Why did Itachi-nii do that?"

"I don't know…"

"But you knew Itachi-nii best! How could you not know?!" She knew he was only lashing out at her because she was there. She was the one that was near his brother the most, the one that knew more about the older Uchiha than their own father and mother did combined. She should've known the answer, she herself felt like she should've. But she didn't, and maybe that was why she hated this whole thing so much. She may have known that there was a reason for it all, but she didn't know what that was. And it aggravated her to no end. "I-Itachi-nii… He…" She could barely contain her own tears as she pulled the younger boy into her arms, biting her lip to contain the sob that was threatening to rip itself from her throat. She was a shinobi, and while Sasuke might not have been privy to that little fact, she still needed to keep herself together. She needed to keep herself strong, for the both of them.

"I know it hurts… Sasuke, you have no idea how much I understand that fact. Itachi was just as much a brother to me as he was to you. But there was a reason why he did it. And while it may not make sense at first. Eventually it will."

"He said he was doing it to test the limits of his abilities…" Her eyes widened at that little tidbit. If that wasn't the most un-Itachi like thing she'd ever heard… It was a blatant lie, and she knew it. Itachi had had a reason, but he was doing that damned self-sacrificial thing he always did. _'Damned idiot is just asking to have something backfire on him… Testing the limits of his abilities… If you were going to come up with a lie Itachi, at least make it believable! Little…' _She huffed, pulling away from the younger to get a better look at his face. He had his eyes largely focused on his lap, but she needed him to look her in the eye, otherwise she'd feel like she was talking to a wall.

"Sasuke, Sasuke look at me…" She ordered, her tone gentle as she lifted the boy's face up, onyx eyes looking at her in confusion. "I'm going to be honest with you. You probably won't like what I'm going to say, but I think it's important you know this. Itachi lied to you." The boy looked like he was about to object, but she kept him doing so, hushing him as she brushed down messy locks of hair that obviously hadn't been combed down in a while. She'd need to remember to get the boy cleaned up once their living arrangements had been situated and the two had more or less settled. "I know Itachi, and while he might be a self-sacrificing idiot that needs to be slapped upside the face more times that I can count. And yes, I will admit, he wasn't too fond of your father or your family in general. He would not have murdered his whole entire clan just to test how strong he was. If he wanted to do that he would've dragged your cousin Shisui to some off shoot training ground that nobody in their right mind visits just so they can pound each other's faces in while I watch from the sidelines and call them derogatory nicknames just to piss the both of them off further." She grinned at the small laugh she got from that last part of the sentence.

It had been on more than one occasion that she had secretly gone behind the older Uchiha's back and dragged his brother along on one of their many misadventures just to watch his brother lose his cool and then yell at her for teaching Sasuke "bad words" while the two cousins beat each other to a bloody pulp. It brought back fond memories of a time when things weren't nearly as confusing for the boy as it was now.

"Listen to me, ok?" the boy nodded, wiping the tears from his face and putting on the bravest expression a six year old could after just losing their family. "I don't know why Itachi did what he did, and all be honest, I'm even less likely to figure it out with your dimwit cousin Shisui missing as well." She paused, making a mental note to knock some sense into him as well before continuing. "But we'll figure this out together alright? You and me both. And once we do, we'll go track down that idiot brother of yours and give him a well-deserved slap upside the head for the all the problems he's caused, and drag him back to the village. He'll be on his hands and knees begging for forgiveness by the time we're through with him!"

"Yeah!" The six year old agreed, sniffing slightly as he took on a much more determined expression. "But…" the boy paused, gaze drifting down to his hands before looking up at the older girl again. "What'll happen to me in the mean time?" In response to the question, Nagisa leant down, giving Sasuke an all too familiar sign of affection by butting their foreheads together gently. She'd only just barely noted the fact that though she had complained to Rika about not handling kids before, she'd actually lied. She'd handled Sasuke before, and while in her panic the thought hadn't crossed her mind, she realized that yes, Sasuke was a child, just like any of the others.

"Silly, don't worry about that! Leave it to your big sister! She's already got everything taken care of!"

"Really?"

"Yep, soon as everything's ready, you'll be coming to live with me!"

She'd never admit it to anyone except maybe Itachi, simply because she was terrible at hiding anything from him. But she'd never been so thankful to the hokage before in all her life. For all of her prior reluctance when it came to accepting this mission, she realized something. The genuinely happy and excited expression that took over the young boy's face, that sheer air of content, made all the future pains and struggles they'd be going through trying to figure this out more than just worth it.

"Don't worry Sasuke. I won't let you deal with all of this alone."

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A/N. And finally chapter two! Almost twice as long as the first chapter I think. But hey, I was having fun! Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and again, thanks for reading! Please leave a review to tell me what you thought of it. See ya!


	3. Bumps in the Road

A/N. And chapter 3!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

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**3: Bumps in the Road**

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"_I HATE YOU! AND ITACHI TOO!"_

The angry words echoed through her stress riddled mind, rattling around the inside of her head like a bucket of rusty old nails as she stared at the ceiling of her new home like it would give her the solutions to all the problems she'd ever had in life.

It hadn't even been an entire week since Sasuke had been released from the hospital. He would've been out sooner, but the members of the civilian council, backed and led by the warmongering elder known as Danzo, had extended that stay by nearly a month and a half as they bickered with the hokage over the fact that he was allowing the village pariah to raise a genius. She'd been called in on more than one occasion throughout that entire fiasco so that they could prove she was unfit to raise a child of any age or social class and that wasn't a possibly bigger monster than she was. The whole thing had been amusing the first couple of times, as she bore witness to the rare occasion when the old man's blood pressure skyrocketed to lethal levels and his face turned an interesting shade of red she'd never seen before. But then they'd quickly taken a turn down Tedious Lane, and she swore by the end of it all that the hokage was secretly plotting mass execution of the entire lot of them. It was a shame she was no longer a member of the anbu, otherwise she would've gladly carried out that mission, insane grin, maniacal, bloody-thirsty look in her eyes and all. Sadly, however she wasn't and therefore would be refused the pleasure of watching them all beg for mercy as she lopped off all their heads with blunt, rusty kunai.

In hindsight, her suddenly short-temper and the overall stress she'd been put through as of recently might've been giving her leeway to listen to the ramblings of the psychopathic, egotistical demon that lay imprisoned in the stomach area of her chakra network. So all the talk of blood and murder might've been the demon fur ball and not actually her own mind wishing to put an end to their ceaseless drivel.

Regardless, she had more pressing concerns right now. Such as the fact that Sasuke apparently hated her, and for one reason or another that was about as clear as the hidden mist jutsu used by Kirigakure shinobi for their all but patented Silent Kill technique, it hurt her, a lot. Not physically, though she had almost checked to see if there was a bloody scar on the area above her heart when those words had left the angry six year olds mouth before the child had stomped and ran his way up to his room and slammed the door as hard as that little body of his was physically capable of.

It wasn't the fact that the words hurt so much that had her surprised, though that was part of it. It was the fact that it had hurt at all that had her more than just a little confused. Nagisa was used to being hated by those around her. The half of Konoha that didn't make it painfully obvious how much they wanted her to jump off a cliff and kill herself to save them all the trouble of doing it themselves, pretended she didn't exist and might as well have been a brick wall built inconveniently in the middle of some random street.

For the latter it was almost as if acknowledging that she was alive and yes, very much breathing was religious taboo.

She had naturally grown accustomed to the hated glares and scathing words that spilled out of various mouths like a waterfall. Words hurt worse than any weapon could, she'd seen more than her fair share of shinobi take their own lives because of some carelessly thrown insult that had left a gaping scar that had never had the chance to heal after all. Not even the most powerful of jutsu could kill as quickly and easily as what one insignificant person said. But like all injuries, they would scar over. Leaving a callous to protect that area from anymore damage. And her heart and mind had been covered with them. Sixteen years was a long time to methodically destroy a child, and raised on nothing but hate and rejection, she had grown numb to the same insults that had been flung carelessly here and there. She could easily brush off someone's "I hate you!" as if it were a nice summer breeze.

So why did it feel like someone had just shoved a sword through her stomach when Sasuke said it?

It left a rotten taste in her mouth for sure, and Nagisa was fairly certain that her stomach was going to riot against her if she continued to sit there and count the seconds of time more accurate than the clock in the kitchen. But she wasn't sure what else she could do in that moment. She had half a mind to get up off of the sofa and see if she couldn't drag the six year old out of his room to talk to him, but the other half was telling her that leaving the house to go and train somewhere so she could blow off some steam was a much better idea. And as inept at parenting as she was, having never had children of her own and her most experience at handling them being under Itachi's own supervision and limited to getting the older in trouble with his parents by teaching Sasuke deplorable and/or questionable things. And then having Sasuke pin it on his older brother unknowingly because she was petty like that and the other had probably skipped out on buying her a meal or something just as trivial in importance and about as mundane.

"Kami, I wish you were here Itachi…" She suddenly said, knowing nothing but silence would answer her. "You always understood Sasuke best. Even when he was angry with you and screaming the exact same words, you could take it in stride and handle him." She gave a dry, mirthless chuckle as old memories began to assault her mind. It had only been three or so months, and already her memories of the only two people that had ever cared for her were starting to fade into gray murkiness. A blur of barely eligible faces and voices that sounded like they were coming through a filter, places and times when they had gotten on each other's last nerve or when one of the others had needed a place to hide and feel safe again. "Even having Shisui around would be better than doing this alone. And Shisui's more inept at handling children than me."

"_You'll be okay…"_

"Wha… Itachi?" She sat up suddenly, surveying the otherwise empty room. The voice had been so clear…

"_Don't give up… You'll be just fine…" _She felt like she was losing her mind as the voice, so distant yet at the same time as clear as a cloudless, sunny day, sounded through her head once again. She could almost feel the hand Itachi would've placed on her head as the loving, caring tone sunk in beneath her skin, and before she knew it, she was crying. Tears running down her face like a waterfall as her knees gave out and she collapsed to the floor, nothing more than a sobbing mess with her face buried in one of the pillows that adorned the sofa, her body trembling with every heartbroken sob that left her lips.

It almost reminded her of all the times she'd broken down right in front of the older Uchiha, only for him to break her further before piecing her back together bit by bit just so she'd feel human again. It was more times than she would ever care to admit, but at that age it had meant all the world to her, still did even now, and it forced her to admit, at least to herself just how much she missed the aloof Uchiha who could be about as emotional as a rock when in front of anyone other than those he considered family.

"Nagisa-nee-chan?" She brought up a sleeve to wipe her face as she looked at her little guest. Sasuke had finally come out of his room, looking about as miserable as he had in the hospital, but a lot more calmer than he had been however long before. "I-I'm sorry about saying such mean things to you… P-Please, Please don't cry!" The boy suddenly pleaded, all but running across the small distance that had been left between the two before almost tackling her to the ground.

"S-Sasuke…"

"I'm sorry, okay? So please stop crying!" He continued, not giving her a chance to speak. "I don't hate you! I don't! I was just angry and… I-I don't want to see Nagisa-nee-chan cry…" Slowly, she lifted her arms, as limp as they had been before, and carefully wrapped them around her young charge as she hesitantly returned his hug.

"Oh Sasuke, I'm not crying because of anything you said…" She assured the boy, bringing up a hand to pat his head as the six year old's body shook slightly from the tears he'd been crying into her shoulder. They were both being a bunch of crybabies, but at this point, she was fairly certain that they had every right to do so as often as they wanted at the moment. Important pieces of their life that couldn't ever be replaced had been ripped from their own hands without them even realizing it. They could be as emotional and bipolar as they pleased, right now at least.

"T-then why?"

"Because I miss my best friends and I'm a big sap that can't go a day without turning into a mess of tears when I don't know where they are, or if they are even alive for that matter." She gave another dry laugh, sniffling from a runny nose as she pulled her sleeve further up her arm to wipe away the stray tears that still ran down her face. "We are both one big mess." She commented idly, pulling the young child into her lap and hugging him even tighter, before brushing the tears from his eyes as well.

"Yeah…" The six year old agreed, leaning further into the warmth the older girl provided. They were both a little broken she decided, Sasuke more than she was by far. But she would make this work, for the both of them.

"There's gonna be a lot of bumps in the road ahead. You just lost your family… And I don't know the first thing about taking care of a kid."

"M'not a kid…" Sasuke suddenly mumbled out, his words garbled as a sudden wave of exhaustion hit and all but knocked him out for the rest of the day.

"Yeah, you're not a kid. You're my kid now… And don't worry… We'll figure out how to make this work somehow." The boy in her lap simply sighed, snuggling further into her arms as he made his way to dreamland. Nagisa laughed, a gentle smile crossing her face as she pushed herself up, careful to not jiggle the small child in her arms too much before making her way to his room. "Well, I guess this is good night for you…"

"_Good night…"_

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A/N. Three guesses as to what's going on with Nagisa and the sudden voices in her head. First two don't count and I can tell you right now that she's not losing her mind or suddenly suffering from a case of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Anyways, sorry if the chapter seemed a little shaky. I hope you enjoyed it still though, and sorry if it was a lot shorter than the first two. Please leave a review and tell me what you think, okay? See ya!


	4. Author's Note

Yes, I know, it's the dreaded author's note chapter, but this is actually kind of important.

So, as you guys probably know, a LOT of my fanfics have not been updated. Some for a very long time. Now I have several reasons for this, but the ones that I feel pertain the most to you guys are the facts that;

A) I don't want to give you guys a super lame chapter just to say I updated. No, that would be bad of me, and I couldn't forgive myself, even if I went back and uploaded one that was ten times better as a replacement. So for now, any story that hasn't been updated in over a month or longer is on hiatus because I don't have any ideas that I feel are interesting as of right now, and I don't want to try pulling out one that smells like crap and writing it anyways. I feel like you guys deserve better than that for being so patient with me.

B) I recently lost the flash drive that I had everything on. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING! Fanfic chapters, school work that I typed, everything is gone. And I was stupid and didn't bother to copy everything onto another removable drive just in case something like this happened. So any completed chapters that would've been uploaded over the past two weeks, gone. Bye-bye! And they ain't coming back. I'm hoping that I'll find the flash drive eventually, because everything that I've lost without being able to find it right away usually turns up at some point. So until I either find the flash drive or just give up, all stories whose chapters were on there, are on hiatus. Sowwy!

C) Yeah, I've been taking a break from uploading because I've been really busy with various things in my life. Plus as of lately, I've been somewhat depressed because Lady Luck suddenly hates me and various other forces beyond comprehension are out to get me. But I've finally decided to suck it up, and get over myself, and use my sad face feelings to create a nice new fanfic to hopefully tie you guys over until I finally start updating all my other fanfics again.

Which brings me to the other reason why you guys are only getting this now.

I'm putting up a poll on my bio concerning a little issue my indecisive little self needs help with. And who better to help me than my lovely little readers, who hopefully don't hate me so much for not updating that they will leave me hanging high and dry. Now I won't tell you guys the plot because I want it to be a surprise and I'm weird like that, but I will tell you that it has to do with Pokémon Adventures.

For those of you Pokémon fans who don't know what Pokémon Adventures is, you might be more familiar with Pokémon Special, which is the same thing. For those of you who don't know what either are and have only ever played the games and watched the anime, Pokémon Adventures/Special is the manga adaptation of both the games and anime. There is no Ash, and it basically changes main characters every few volumes. I like to consider both the anime and manga two separate realms with different physics and rules that control both the pokémon and people, so I will admit I like reading fanfic where the two worlds are mixed together to see how people think the characters will react to each other. I myself have written at least two fanfics like that, both are fem!Ash. And this is a fem!Ash fanfic as well.

But that's beside the point! What I want you guys to do, if you'd be so kind as to take the time. Is to go on my bio, find the little poll thingy at the top, or wherever it is now that they've been changing the appearance of the site so much, and click on it. Because one downside that I find about the manga that the anime doesn't have, is that there are SO many main characters and it's very difficult to pick and choose between them. Now before people start spamming my PMs and Inbox and start telling me that Red MUST be in the fanfic, he's going to be in it. Chill out.

The maximum number of Adventures/Special trainers I'm picking is somewhere around 3-4, maybe. The number itself might actually change depending on whether or not I choose to include other characters from other spin-offs, but yeah. You guys get to pick 2, but only 2, no more, maybe less since I'm not entirely sure how the poll thingy works. And if I somehow forgot a character you think should be included in the list, PM it to me. A reason would also be nice, but you don't have to if you don't want to. And I may consider OCs, but they have to be very good ones! PM me those too if you think that I really must see them.

Anyways, so yeah, do this for me, and I promise I'll make the bestest chapter ever for… one of my fanfics. Eventually.

P.S. For those of you concerned about A Change of Fate, that is the only other fanfic that I am currently still updating.

Signed,

Pokepika's Haunt ;P


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